Social Media

Pussy Riot are planning a new performance with Les Enfants Terribles

Russia’s most famous feminist punk group Pussy Riot have launched their first Kickstarter with a funding goal of £60,000. If the campaign is successful, the money will be put towards a new immersive theatre performance created in partnership with award-winning theatre company Les Enfants Terribles.

The performance, Inside Pussy Riot will recreate Pussy Riot’s infamous performance at Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow to protest the Orthodox Church leaders support for Vladimir Putin during his election campaign, the group’s consequent arrest, and their imprisonment. If the funding goal is reached, it will be performed in London in November.

“This wild theatrical experience will allow the audience to become a participant, experiencing exactly what Pussy Riot went through during our imprisonment – from the original Church performance, to the court trial and prison cells,” Nadya explains on the project’s Kickstarter page. “We’re going to recreate Russian courtrooms, a real Russian labour colony, solitary confinement cells, priests who shout about banning abortions and many more absurd, but real-life things that exist in Russia today.”

“The audience will actually get the chance to re-live each one of these experiences themselves, learning what it means to be a political opponent in Russia today. We’ll take you on a journey from the cathedral altar deep into the vaults of the Kremlin itself. Hopefully, this is a journey that you’ll only have to make once in your life.”

For £25, Pussy Riot say they will “send a friendly POSTCARD TO VLADIMIR PUTIN ahead of his 2018 election campaign! You choose a message. You’ll get your proof pic of the card”, while those that pledge in excess of £10,00 can “come to Russia and we’ll invite you on an alternative TOUR OF MOSCOW WITH NADYA”. The backer’s name will be credited in the programme, although there is no mention of flights or accommodation.

At the time of writing, project backers had pledged a total of £7,636.

If you go down to Highgate Woods in London today, you might be in for a bit of a surprise. Among the dog walkers, the frazzled parents searching for their kids and the forestry workers making sure that the ancient woodland is being preserved, you might, if you look carefully, find one of the most prolific artists and illustrators working in the UK. Highgate Woods, all 28 hectares of it, is Noma Bar’s ‘office’. Everyday, come rain or shine, the graphic artist is there, somewhere, armed with his notebooks and pens, working through ideas that will appear in their final forms in newspapers, magazines, as part of a campaign or a gallery.

Kayla Buium always knew she wanted to pursue a career in art. Her first ventures as an artist began at a young age, which involved taking commissions from friends at school. “I remember in second grade we used to use pencil ‘tips’ as currency. I would make flash pages of drawings and charge kids different ‘tip prices’ for the drawings,” says Kayla. “During recess I was always busy trying to keep up with commissions. Not much has changed since then.”

The Royal Ballet’s controversy courting resident choreographer Wayne McGregor and experimental artist collective Random International’s Hannes Koch and Florian Ortkrass have been exploring technology and emotion together for nearly a decade. Their latest collaboration, +/-Human, opens tonight at the Roundhouse, London. The immersive installation harnesses the talents of team of musicians from Warp Records and renowned lighting designer Lucy Carter.

For one night only, Bertie Brandes and Charlotte Roberts have expanded the satirical pages of their self-published zine Mushpit into a physical art installation held at the Galeria Melissa on Thursday 10 August. Titled Interiority Complex, the event aims to explore the issues and uncertainties surrounding social media anxieties.

Artist Reiko Matsuo looks for surrealism in everyday life. Her subjects are familiar: a man scoffing a TV dinner next to his cat, a girl dancing in her room (also with a cat), a curtain-twitcher spying on sunbathers with binoculars, all depicted in chirpy acrylics with comedic expressions. Some get a little weirder, such as the family surrounded by woodland creatures, and another family calmly watching a tiger on their kitchen table.

New York-based artist Greg Burak’s interest in art was first sparked by book covers, album art and movies and television growing up, but it wasn’t until college that he started to look deeper into art history. The artist’s work is based heavily in narrative using shapes, colour and figures to tell his stories. “Lately I’ve been in love with early Renaissance painting. The more I look at them the more exciting they become, both in terms of the logic in constructing those paintings but also how they depicted supernatural narratives,” the artist says of his inspiration. “I keep going back to Stanley Kubrick’s films as well -– they are so particular and almost hypnotic.”